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| Africa Horn |
| Somalia opposition groups congress opens in Asmara |
| 2007-09-07 |
| (SomaliNet) Ten-day conference over uniting the forces against the Somali’s government began in the Eritrean capital of Asmara on Thursday as top Islamist officials attended that congress. About 400 delegates including the expelled parliament members, key leaders of the defeated Islamic Courts, Somali Diasporas and international representatives gathered the meeting which is the first of its kind to call an immediate withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces from the war-ravaged country. The supreme leader of the ousted Islamic Courts Union Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys appeared before the congress underlining that Somalia needs to be liberated from the Ethiopian occupation. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed who Washington described as moderate cleric has also delivered his speech at the congress calling on Ethiopian government to pull its troops from Somalia. “This conference is to form an effective political party to unshackle the country from the trap of the colony,” said Sheikh Ahmed. He also condemned the US policy in the horn of African and its support to the Ethiopian invasion to Somalia. Sheikh Ahmed, the exiled leader, said the conflict will only remain in Somalia it will also spread to whole region as well and security risk will get high as long as Ethiopian troops stay in Somalia. The Asmara conference which the Somali government described it as nonsense came week after the reconciliation congress in Mogadishu ended in failure and deepened the political crisis. Earlier, the Islamic leaders condemned the Mogadishu congress as fruitless saying that peace can come only when Ethiopia withdraw Somalia. The internationally recognized Somalia government failed to restore peace in the capital blamed the Islamic movement for the daily Iraqi-style attacks which put Mogadishu into deadly violence in recent months. |
| Posted by:Fred |